Letter: County's budget needs reform

Published Sunday, June 17, 2007

Editor: Over and over we read in The St. Augustine Record how our commissioners will have to cut essential services to reduce property taxes. The headline, Tax reform hurts budget is nonsensical. The article reported that to reach the proposed 2008 budget our County Commission trimmed $15 million from its original proposal of $718 million. A very light trim, indeed.

The 2000 county budget (excluding education) was $225 million which means the proposed budget for 2008 is more than three times that. During that period county population grew by about 40 percent. Spendings up by more than 300 percent. Populations up by only 40 percent. Something is out of whack.

Stated another way, in 2000 the county budget (education excluded) was $1,829 per resident (adult and child), and in 2007, it is $4,367. In my opinion, county services in 2000 were excellent, plenty of everything. When we hear our County Commissioners groaning and grumping that budget cuts will force them to cut essential services, we should respond suggesting a return to the level of services we enjoyed and paid for in 2000.

A 40 percent increase in population, because of economies of scale, should allow a lower budgeted cost per resident. We do not need 40 percent more police and fire chiefs, librarians, mosquito control crews, lifeguards, park landscapers, and so on. Maybe inflation would counterbalance some of these, perhaps keeping the nominal budget per resident about the same, but certainly not ballooning 2.4 times.

This insanity must be reversed before finally killing whats left of real-estate sales.

An increasing waist line does not come from looking at too many buffet tables but rather from too much eating. Increased property taxes do not come from rising property values and assessments but rather from too much county spending.